Gov. Scott’s Choice: Education Versus Health Care?

July 9, 2012 | 1:47 PM

Gracie Fowler dropping her son, Jackson, and daughter, Havilah, off at karate lessons. She wants Florida to expand access to Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act to ensure coverage for her kids and herself, but doesn't think it should come at the expense of schools.

Gracie Fowler earns $11 an hour at an Orlando title company. It’s just enough that sometimes she earns too much for her two kids to qualify for Medicaid.

That’s what happened for two months earlier this year.

“Luckily they didn’t get sick but that was like the only couple of months where they didn’t have a little ear infection or they didn’t need to be tested for strep,” she says. “If they would have needed to go to the doctor then it would have been an emergency room visit. ”

Fowler, 35, recently got insurance through her job. But she’s worried she or her children, Jackson, 8, and Havilah, 6, could lose health coverage again. Sometimes it depends on whether Jackson and Havilah’s father pays child support.

And if Florida expands Medicaid to cover more adults, she’d be eligible — and that could save her $120 a month.

“That’s heavy-duty to me. My phone bill is $50,” she says, one of many tough budget choices she makes in her household. “I’m scared. I’m a single mom. This rides on me. These children are with me 99 percent of the time.”

But Gov. Rick Scott is worried about a heavy-duty bill for expanding Medicaid.

The federal law’s expansion would add 951,000 low-income adults to the state’s Medicaid rolls, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, about two-thirds of whom have no insurance.

But Scott says the money is better spent on education. He’s says Florida will not expand Medicaid under the federal health care law.

“Right now you have a choice in Florida government,” Scott said in a Fox News Channel interview last week. “It’s Medicaid, it’s education or it’s prisons. And Medicaid has been growing at three and a half times our general revenue. So that has made it very difficult to fund our education.

University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith says it goes along with Scott’s jobs message. Spend more on education and you have a workforce better able to find jobs which provide health insurance, Scott’s reasoning goes.

“Was it a political decision in term of public opinion, I mean, perhaps,” Snaith said. “But I think it’s also consistent with the long-run goals — trying to build an educated, dynamic workforce that really is a very powerful attractant for businesses.”

But Orange County school board chairman Bill Sublette doubts the savings from not expanding Medicaid will make their way to schools.

“That hasn’t been the case in the past,” he says, arguing the Legislature chronically underfunds education. “And I really think it’s unfair to pit Medicaid and health care issues against public education. There’s no guarantee and frankly there’s no history of showing whatsoever that that money will go to public education.”

Orange County Public Schools

Orange County school board chairman Bill Sublette.

Sublette is a former Republican lawmaker and believes the public will see through the “crass politics” of Scott’s arguments.